The pillar slowly came to a floating halt upon reaching the ice "forest"'s ceiling, its course wholly uninterrupted.

...Alright, everything was going well so far. Only one thing left. Camelia briefly glanced past her cover, half her face barely emerging from it, before resuming her previous position. Okay, now she had a pretty good idea of exactly where the latest shot had come from - or at least, which tree it roughly concerned. Taking into account the distance, she aimed her semblance and began charging a burst, the purple taint surrounding the seemingly weightless intensifying as she did so.

Just... a little bit more... and Samantha was satisfied with the charge inside Ashen Howl. The blades were practically vibrating in her hands at this point, making her palms feel a little numb, but she kept a grip on tight around the twinned swords. Now to just wait for her opportunity.

Seeing the purple shimmer around the makeshift projectile concentrate, she took a quick glance behind her before pushing back off the tree, doing what she could to sneak around a little in the last bits of foilage on her side and try to get out of any immediate danger. Getting a bit closer for a counterattack wouldn't hurt, either. Her echolocation wouldn't work while she had this much charge in her semblance, but at the same time, meant she should be quiet, if not silent in her movements.

In a soundless pulse of colour, the ice pillar started moving. Within half a second, it had reached over 115 kilometres an hour and rocketed towards its target in a ballistic trajectory. Camelia, meanwhile, felt the strain on her reserves but was now free to concentrate on something else.

As careful as ever, she peeked around the right of her cover, partly to see if the projectile would hit and partly to get a read on her opponent's whereabouts.

Samantha blinked for a moment as the pillar suddenly started moving, before yelping, pushing herself to the ground - and still getting buffeted by the storm of ice brought along with it, rolling backwards along the ground. Cursing as she got splashed around in the swamp, she got to her feet - clothes dripping dirty water - and growled quietly. That was gonna take ages to wash out.

Chains slinking forward, she started propelling herself onwards, pulling forward between the trees Attack-on-Titan style (and she was not humming the theme, no matter what anyone said), rocketing out of the swamp area and towards Camelia.

Taking a gander from behind her cover, Camelia observed the pillar travel in a steady arc, overshooting the enemy who'd managed to drop right to the ground in time and utterly obliterating a few trees in the process. Still, it wasn't a total loss; some of the ice splintered off on impact and caught the sniper girl. Which, as she was half-expecting, started rocketing towards her.

What she didn't expect, though, was that she was using four chains as limbs with which to launch herself between the trees. This... wasn't exactly good.

Getting out of cover, Camelia stood up, took a solid stance and brought her right hand to half of Unity, getting it out of its sheath while Orion reconfigured into a parabola. Only thing left to do now was to wait for her opponent to come into range. She didn't really have much choice in the matter; with four chains AND arms and legs, there was a strong risk of being overwhelmed in CQC even if she switched Unity's form.

Flinging herself forward, Samantha glanced at her opponent as they held their ground, waiting for them. The fact they weren't trying to back off meant they at least had some kind of idea on defense - and if the blasts from the shield as seen earlier were any indication, those tended to be quite powerful in a cone. Unless she could dodge out of the way - which was difficult when trying to get up close as she was - she'd need to weather the storm long as she could before knocking the attack off target. Even if there wasn't a sudden blast, there was certainly a need to surprise and overwhelm in the first attack now, considering how much waiting she'd been doing. This would be the best opportunity she'd have to get off a strong attack, with her opponent waiting there and ready to counter.

Placing the blades of Prismatic Performance together, the two chains not in use to swing her out of the swamp snaked towards Camelia, and then around, trying to provide some sort of entrapment that might give her a chance to catch them off guard if they backed off. Staccato and Encore made a mechanical noise as the two combined together, before a horrendous screeching noise echoed around the arena as Samantha brought the now-chainsword downwards, the charged sonic energy around it making a horrible racket.

Okay, so her opponent showed absolutely no signs of slowing down. Good. For now, she let her close in, not failing to notice the metallic glints almost hidden by the foremost pillars.

As the chain-led girl neared, her swords combined and promptly emitted a horrendous, skin-crawling screech that sounded lik metal plates scraping against quartz pebbles. Truly a bad sound if there ever was one. The swords, or sword, rather, was brought down upon Camelia, who went down on one knee to receive the blow properly, initiating Orion's firing mechanism right as the attack hit it, unleashing a crackling wave of electricity as one of the Lihgtning Dust charges was consumed. To add to it, in prevision of the girl having been stunned, she deployed her semblance in front of herself, encapsuling the chain wielder and a good portion of its surroundings in a faint purple glow.

Samantha grinned behind her mask as the sword impacted, blades grinding against the shield heavily as her opponent attempted to counteract the hit. The sudden burst of electricity led her to bring the chains down to bear against the shield, acting as miniature lightning rods - she'd long since done what she could to insulate the connectors, and despite the sting she'd feel it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as if it hit directly - before following up by taking those electrified chains and attempting to stab them into Camelia, a small burst of her semblance behind the sword attempting to shove the weapon downwards again. Whichever way they moved, they should be able to get them into a trap.

The purple glow around them gave them pause, but they pressed on, making sure to divert one chain into the ground instead - sure, losing a bit of damage, but having a bit of a backup plan if they were shot like a bullet.

Unexpectedly, the electricity blast didn't have much more of an effect than usual - whatever was controlling those chains, it either had nothing to do with electronics or was utterly shielded. Aaand Camelia now had to deal with more incoming attacks, the chains that'd been holding the enemy up now speeding towards herself. But hey, not everything was bad news! Her target was still in her semblance's charging zone!

For now, though, Camelia pressed forward a bit while angling her shield to the side and back. As Orion returned to its convex shape, the opponent's blades slid right off while the shield's owner took the opportunity to roll to the front right, avoiding most attacks - a chain still found its mark. While this kerfuffle was ongoing, Camelia's semblance activated, turning the chain-wielder's surrounding gravity into twice the norm.

Ending her roll, she kept her shield close as she looked for the results of her semblance's effects.

(Samantha now under 2 gs' worth of gravity, however much damage if she doesn't nail the landing)

Yelping as a sudden weight pressed down on her, Samantha staggered for a moment as Camelia rolled. She was glad she'd sent one chain to ground herself, using it to avoid completely falling on her ass- and levelling a glare at the other woman from beneath the mask. That semblance was annoyingly versatile. Giving off a grunt, she attempted to steady herself on the spare chain, swinging her arm backwards in a haphazard slash up from the ground where the sword had crashed into, trying to buy some time from her off-balanced state.

The higher gravity didn't help things. At least, she thought it was, considering her opponent's previous actions - but didn't have too much time to mull it over, instead using one of the chains to forcefully yank the weapon forwards, building up a little more speed and attempting to make her opponent fall back if she could. The two spare chains were rattling as they moved, but had to be brought back around from their attack still.

As her opponent adjusted to her newfound predicament, Camelia looked at her options, keeping her shield at the ready. Since the enemy was still standing still, or at least not moving from her position, she started charging a pulse, the already purple air changing to a darker shade.

Apart from that... There were still some Dust left in Orion, so she could resort to it if needed, but for now, she decided to slowly decrease the gap, staying mindful of all the chains and keeping ready to deflect/parry/defend from any incoming attack. After all, she'd run out of Dust eventually and if she was to get in some hits, she needed to be closer.

Two chains snaked their way towards Camelia as she approached, looking like they were going in to attempt an attack but instead swinging around at a slightly slower pace than before to try and hit her back. The gravity did make them harder to manipulate, but she could still swing them about with less control and some more force.

The woman grunted, before another small burst of semblance suddenly set the blade spinning around at high speeds. Steadying her grip with her other two chains, she took advantage of the increased gravity this time and attempted to do an arcing swing sideways and down at Camelia, using the previous momentum to practically chuck herself and the whirring blade at her opponent.

Having kept an eye out for all of her opponent's limbs, Camelia was able to dodge the chains coming at her back relatively easily. However, her enemy's main weapon proved much harder to fend off - even though she swung Orion into the attack to deflect it, she wound up knocked around a bit, the chain-wielder not only successfully closing in but also escaping her previously charging burst zone.

Not one to give up easily, she let go of her currently-charging burst and started another one at her target's new location. Everything wasn't so bad, though; she was still under 2 g and, added bonus, was now almost close enough to strike directly. Camelia approached further.

Her opponent having had blocked all her previous blows, Samantha guessed that the swing she now threw at her opponent again - using the momentum of the previous knockback to swing the blade around without needing her semblance in the lower gravity - would be similarly blocked. And if that was the case...

Throwing the chains again at her opponent's back, she changed their path just as they were about to hit - looking to circle and yank upwards at her opponent's arms. Swinging the sword forwards as this happened, she got ready to finally release the charged-up burst in Prismatic Performance, but waiting to see if the slash actually hit first before letting it go.

Camelia was now right besides the gravity zone encompassing her opponent. The burst was still charging. She prepared a strike, aiming to-

- Aaaaaah, fuck. This was unpleasant. The chains had come around her back again but this time, she'd tried to yank her arms up. Thankfully, she'd only partially succeeded, leaving Camelia in an odd position where her elbows were lifted. The arm carrying Orion hadn't risen too much due to the shield's sheer weight, but it still made her uncomfortably exposed.

Using all her strength, she brought it back down as fast as she could while bringing the half of Unity she was currently wielding onto her enemy, the haphazard (due to previous meddling by a certain individual's supplementary limbs) downwards swing coincided with the sudden resurgence of color surrounding her target.

(Sam's immediate surroundings are now under an additional 6.6 g for 0.5 seconds, for a total of 8.6 g; ~6% inherent damage +6 or so % if she has a bad fall/12% if she falls and hits her head on the ground, 8% sword strike with +15% gravity assist)